The important cellular processes of cell division, cell-cell communication and celluar development will be investigated using the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus as a model system. We plan to characterize the bank of developmental mutants which we have isolated and correlate their phenotypes with the pattern of gene expression seen by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. We plan to continue our studies of the transcriptional regulations of development by purifying and characterizing the RNA polymerase from M. xanthus. We also plan to characterize the development specific hemagglutinin and study its mode of regulation.